How update a date column into another format?

Question

Hi I have a table column Plaerdob witch have diff date type like 1- 1-jan-1987. 2- 01/01/1987 3- 01-jan-1987. Here i want to update all my dates format of 2 and 3 into 1. Can it be possible? if yes then how? Pls help. Thanks

Wim Sturkenboom · Answer

I assume that the table is a SQL table. I also assume that your dates are currently stored as strings (e.g. nvarchar(50)). The (partial) solution: just change the type of your date column to datetime2. On my system it converts all the example dates to 1987-01-01. Notes: If you store a date in sql server store it with the correct type. Once you have the correct type there are ways in C#/VB (and to my knowledge in SQL but I have never used it) to display in the desired format. So don't worry about that. C# examples: string strDate = DateTime.Now.ToString(yyyyMMdd); or string strDate = DateTime.Now.ToString(d-MMM-yyyy); The last one gives the output that you want.